GIni Lits Axper Jan Gini Lits
U.S. Senate Unanimously Recognizes Armenian Genocide
#1
Posted 12 December 2019 - 01:21 PM
- onjig likes this
#2
Posted 12 December 2019 - 02:17 PM
December 12, 2019
U.S. Senate Unanimously Recognizes Armenian Genocide
ANCA-Backed Bipartisan Measure (S.Res.150) Completes Congressional Over-Ride of Ankara's Longstanding Veto, Increasing Pressure on the White House
WASHINGTON, DC - The U.S. Senate struck a historic blow today against Turkey's century-long obstruction of justice for the Armenian Genocide, unanimously adopting S.Res.150, an Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA)-backed measure that locks in ongoing U.S. recognition of this crime.
The resolution, identical to a measure (H.Res.296) adopted 405 to 11 in the U.S. House in October, officially rejects Turkey's denials of its genocide against Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites, and other Christian nations. Passage of the resolution - spearheaded by Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) - marks the first time that the Senate has recognized the Armenian Genocide.
"The Senate today joined the House in rejecting Ankara's gag-rule against honest American remembrance of the Armenian Genocide - overriding the largest, longest foreign veto over the U.S. Congress in American history," said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. "Today's unanimous Senate action shines a spotlight on the President, who continues - against all reason - to enforce Erdogan's veto against honest American remembrance of Turkey's extermination and exile of millions of Christians. It's time for the Executive Branch to join Congress in ending any and all American complicity in Ankara's lies. Together, the President and Congress should put in place a sustained and pro-active policy that rejects Turkey's lies, challenges Ankara's obstruction of justice, and works with Armenian and Turkish stakeholders toward the international reparations and other remedies required of this crime."
- onjig likes this
#3
Posted 12 December 2019 - 02:21 PM
My apologies to the Senate for doubting that, it will take a long time for this to happen!
- MosJan and onjig like this
#4
Posted 12 December 2019 - 02:21 PM
- onjig likes this
#5
Posted 12 December 2019 - 02:22 PM
- onjig likes this
#6
Posted 12 December 2019 - 02:23 PM
- onjig likes this
#7
Posted 12 December 2019 - 02:23 PM
WASHINGTON – In a stinging rebuke to Turkey, the Senate on Thursday unanimously passed a resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide – marking a shift in U.S. policy despite repeated objections from the Trump administration.
The Senate's action is historic, and it will almost certainly exacerbate U.S.-Turkey tensions. The genocide measure officially recognizes the systematic killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923.
For decades, Turkey had deployed an army of lobbyists to stop the measure. But that effort fell short on Thursday, when Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., pressed for its adoption and no senator objected.
Menendez broke down in tears afterward, when he began recounting the horrors of the genocide.
https://www.usatoday...ent/4410046002/
- onjig likes this
#8
Posted 12 December 2019 - 02:24 PM
The U.S. Senate unanimously adopted resolution calling to commemorate the Armenian Genocide through official recognition and remembrance and to reject efforts to associate the United States Government with denial of the Armenian Genocide.
The full text of the resolution is as follows:
RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of the Senate that it is the policy of the United States to commemorate the Armenian Genocide through official recognition and remembrance.
Whereas the United States has a proud history of recognizing and condemning the Armenian Genocide, the killing of an estimated 1,500,000 Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, and providing relief to the survivors of the campaign of genocide against Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites, and other Christians;
Whereas the Honorable Henry Morgenthau, Sr., United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916, organized and led protests by officials of many countries against what he described as “a campaign of race extermination,” and, on July 16, 1915, was instructed by United States Secretary of State Robert Lansing that the “Department approves your procedure … to stop Armenian persecution”;
Whereas President Woodrow Wilson encouraged the formation of Near East Relief, chartered by an Act of Congress, which raised approximately $116,000,000 (more than $2,500,000,000 in 2019 dollars) between 1915 and 1930, and the Senate adopted resolutions condemning the massacres;
Whereas Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term “genocide” in 1944 and who was the earliest proponent of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, invoked the Armenian case as a definitive example of genocide in the 20th century;
Whereas, as displayed in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Adolf Hitler, on ordering his military commanders to attack Poland without provocation in 1939, dismissed objections by saying, “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”, setting the stage for the Holocaust;
Whereas the United States has officially recognized the Armenian Genocide—
(1) through the May 28, 1951, written statement of the United States Government to the International Court of Justice regarding the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and Proclamation No. 4838 issued by President Ronald Reagan on April 22, 1981; and
(2) by House Joint Resolution 148, 94th Congress, agreed to April 8, 1975, and House Joint Resolution 247, 98th Congress, agreed to September 10, 1984; and
Whereas the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018 (Public Law 115–441) establishes that the prevention of atrocities is a national interest of the United States and affirms that it is the policy of the United States to pursue a United States Government-wide strategy to identify, prevent, and respond to the risk of atrocities by “strengthening diplomatic response and the effective use of foreign assistance to support appropriate transitional justice measures, including criminal accountability, for past atrocities”: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that it is the policy of the United States—
(1) to commemorate the Armenian Genocide through official recognition and remembrance;
(2) to reject efforts to enlist, engage, or otherwise associate the United States Government with denial of the Armenian Genocide or any other genocide; and
(3) to encourage education and public understanding of the facts of the Armenian Genocide, including the role of the United States in humanitarian relief efforts, and the relevance of the Armenian Genocide to modern-day crimes against humanity.
- onjig likes this
#9
Posted 12 December 2019 - 02:25 PM
The landmark resolution was passed by the Senate on Thursday. It was the fourth attempt to adopt it, as the previous efforts were blocked by three GOP senators.
“We have just passed the Armenian genocide resolution...and it is fitting and appropriate that the Senate stands on the right side of history in doing so. It commemorates the truth of the Armenian genocide,” the resolution’s sponsor, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), said.
The United States Senate just passed the Armenian Genocide resolution with no objection through unanimous consent! Thank you, @SenatorMenendez and @SenTedCruz, for your relentless commitment to passing this resolution. pic.twitter.com/2IBfjZZwIk
— Armenian Assembly (@ARAMAC_DC) December 12, 2019
Recognizing the mass-killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians during WWI as a “genocide” has been vehemently opposed by the Trump administration, which argued such a move would further spoil already-tense relations with Turkey. Ankara, for its part, has long denied any mass killings took place, insisting that tens of thousands of both Turks and Armenians were killed as a result of the war.
A similar resolution was passed by the House of Representatives back in October by an overwhelming majority. The move sent Turkey into frenzy, with the country’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu branding the “null and void” decision a “shameful” and petty “revenge” for Turkey’s independent foreign policy.
https://www.rt.com/u...ide-resolution/
- onjig likes this
#10
Posted 12 December 2019 - 02:25 PM
WASHINGTON
The U.S. Senate unanimously passed Thursday a resolution that recognizes the so-called Armenian genocide.
"Our resolution to recognize and commemorate the #ArmenianGenocide just passed the United States Senate," Senator Bob Menendez announced on Twitter.
The resolution asserts that "it is the policy" of the U.S. to commemorate the alleged genocide "through official recognition and remembrance."
Last week, the White House asked Republican Senator Kevin Cramer to block voting on the resolution, according to the Axios news site. That marked the third time a Republican senator blocked the measure at the White House's request.
Last month, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham objected to passing the resolution after Menendez sought consent to pass it. Republican Senator David Perdue was also asked to block the resolution.
Cramer said he does not think it is "the right time" to pass the resolution, according to Axios.
The senator reportedly cited U.S. President Donald Trump's meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan at this month's NATO summit in London, saying the resolution could harm the Trump administration's diplomatic efforts.
In mid-November during his visit in Washington, Erdogan reiterated his call for historians to investigate the issue.
"If the U.S. side really wants to act fairly, it should refrain from taking a political stand on a matter that historians should decide," said Erdogan.
The president warned that listening to one side would lead to irreparable harms in Turkey-U.S. relations.
On Oct. 29, the anniversary of the Turkish Republic, the House voted 405-11 in favor of the resolution to recognize alleged killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire in 1915.
Turkey's position on the events of 1915 is that the deaths of Armenians in eastern Anatolia took place when some sided with invading Russians and revolted against Ottoman forces. A subsequent relocation of Armenians resulted in numerous casualties.
Turkey objects to the presentation of the incidents as "genocide" but describes the 1915 events as a tragedy in which both sides suffered casualties.
Ankara has repeatedly proposed the creation of a joint commission of historians from Turkey and Armenia plus international experts to examine the issue.
- onjig likes this
#11
Posted 12 December 2019 - 02:26 PM
New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez shared the news on his Twitter account. "Our resolution to recognize and commemorate the Armenian Genocide just passed the U.S. Senate," he wrote.
The resolution had been blocked several times in the Senate, even though the Democratic-led House of Representatives passed the resolution by an overwhelming 405-11 late October.
The resolution asserts that it is U.S. policy to commemorate the 1915 events as "genocide."
Turkey objects to presenting the 1915 incidents as "genocide," rather calling them a tragedy in which both Turks and Armenians suffered casualties in the heat of World War I.
Ankara immediately denounced the House vote. It views foreign involvement in the issue as a threat to its sovereignty.
It has repeatedly proposed the creation of a joint commission of historians from Turkey and Armenia under the supervision of international experts to examine the issue.
Recognition of the 1915 events as "genocide" had for decades stalled in the Congress, stymied by concerns about relations with Turkey.
- onjig likes this
#12
Posted 12 December 2019 - 02:27 PM
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON, DC – The United States Senate on December 12 unanimously passed a resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide, “in a stinging rebuke to Turkey,” USA Today reported.
Today, by passing my #ArmenianGenocide resolution, the Senate finally stood up to confirm history: What happened in Armenia was – most assuredly – genocide.
There is no other word for it.
There is no euphemism.
There is no avoiding it. pic.twitter.com/Kna92CZDcV
— Senator Bob Menendez (@SenatorMenendez) December 12, 2019
The passage also marks “a shift in U.S. policy despite repeated objections from the Trump administration,” USA Today reported, adding that “the Senate’s action is historic, and it will almost certainly exacerbate U.S.-Turkey tensions” and “the genocide measure officially recognizes the systematic killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923.”
BREAKING: Our resolution to recognize and commemorate the #ArmenianGenocide just passed the United States Senate. pic.twitter.com/TVbaneuOaq
— Senator Bob Menendez (@SenatorMenendez) December 12, 2019
The report in USA Today also noted that “for decades, Turkey had deployed an army of lobbyists to stop the measure. But that effort fell short on Thursday, when Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, pressed for its adoption and no senator objected.”
Sen. Menendez, according to the USA Today report, “broke down in tears afterward, when he began recounting the horrors of the genocide.”
- onjig likes this
#13
Posted 12 December 2019 - 02:27 PM
- onjig likes this
#14
Posted 12 December 2019 - 02:28 PM
The US Senate on Thursday unanimously passed a resolution that recognises as a genocide the mass killings of Armenians a century ago, a move likely to infuriate Turkey and further strain ties between Ankara and Washington.
The Democratic-led House of Representatives passed the resolution by an overwhelming 405-11 in late October. But a vote in the Senate, where President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans hold a majority of seats, had been blocked several times by Republican senators.
https://cyprus-mail.com/2019/12/12/us-senate-passes-resolution-recognising-armenian-genocide/
- onjig likes this
#15
Posted 12 December 2019 - 02:28 PM
- David Lepeska
- Dec 12 2019 10:20 Gmt+3
- Last Updated On: Dec 12 2019 10:29 Gmt+3
The Turkish government launched an English-language Armenian genocide denial website this week, underscoring the extent to which history in Turkey is less about facts and scholarly analysis than a favourable portrayal of past events.
“This website will respond to Armenian genocide slander used against our country at every possible opportunity in the international area, by putting historical information and data to the fore," Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun said, referring to the new site.
For years, the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) has proposed the establishment of a commission to analyse Ottoman and Armenian archives to determine whether the Ottoman Empire committed genocide against Armenians from 1915. But the government already appears to have its answer.
“The main voice that counters research on the Armenian genocide is the Turkish government, that is the base truth,” Ryan Gingeras, associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School and one of the more widely respected historians of the late Ottoman era and early Republican period.
Yektan Türkyılmaz, a Kurdish-origin historian who has worked in the Turkish and Armenian archives, took a similar view. “Genocide is not an event, it is a process,” he said. “Denialism is a part of this process.”
Erdoğan’s government makes three assertions in regards to the label of genocide. The first is that historians have yet to review an immense repository of documents in the Armenian and Ottoman archives.
Gingeras points out that Turkey’s Interior Ministry keeps some of its archives off-limits, but acknowledged that there were likely records within the archives that could better illuminate the events of 1915-1919.
“There is still a lot to learn about the period, about not simply what happened to Armenians, but how the government thought about it, how they went about prosecuting the genocide, how they went about making sure that the effect of the Armenian genocide wasn’t reversed, meaning that Armenians don’t come back,” he said.
Türkyılmaz pointed out that Turkey’s military archives were only partially open, and that the land registry archives, which are crucial because they reveal demographic change through home ownership, remained closed.
Even if these archives were open, he said they might not reveal much. “Archives function as a display window of a state,” he told Ahval in a podcast. “They form an exhibition where a state creates itself.”
Turkey’s second argument is that mostly amateurs and non-historians have analysed the issue, but at least a dozen respected historians have written at length about the Armenian genocide, and in the past decade many strongly researched books on the issue have been published.
Turkey’s third assertion - that the label of genocide is not supported by the available evidence - is likely the most dubious. “There is almost unanimous agreement in academia about what happened to Armenians in 1915,” said Türkyılmaz.
There is also a growing global consensus, as government bodies in 32 countries, including the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Brazil have recognised the genocide.
Last week, U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer blocked a resolution that would have officially recognised the Armenian Genocide in the Senate, following its passage in the House in October. It was the third time in a month that a Republican prevented the Senate from voting on the resolution.
Cramer said the move would anger Turkey during a time of sensitive negotiations on Turkey’s offensive in northeast Syria and its purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile systems.
“I’m not sure the U.S. government is an appropriate agent to make these kinds of decisions,” said Gingeras, who understands the Armenian diaspora movement to bring pressure on Turkey. “Is this something that Congress should be busying itself with, and to what end?”
This echoes Turkey’s new website, which warns foreign governments against making formal pronouncements about the genocide that could hurt Turkish-Armenian relations. The site also calls for “leaving history to historians” and points to “fatalities on both sides” - common rallying cries from the Turkish perspective.
Türkyılmaz offered a rejoinder to those who say the Turkish and U.S. governments are only politicising the issue. “Nothing about the Armenian genocide is politically neutral, including the definition of genocide itself,” he said.
More than any other period or issue, Turks are taught about the era before, during, and after the country’s birth, according to Gingeras. But the role of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, an Ottoman general who founded the Republic of Turkey after the collapse of the empire in 1923, tends to be over-glorified, while the suffering of Armenians is significantly under-played.
In March 1916, Atatürk became a field commander in eastern Anatolia, the scene of many of the massacres and mass deportation of Armenians the year before. As such, Atatürk was surely aware of what had happened, but we have no record of his thoughts on the issue, Gingeras said, only that in an interview after the war, Turkey’s founder described the massacres as “villainy that belongs in the past”.
Atatürk nevertheless appointed former Ottoman officials, such as Şukru Kaya and Abdülhalik Renda, who had helped facilitate the genocide to ministerial posts in the new republic.
Though legal cases against those who describe the events as genocide are now rare, the ferocity with which Turkey’s government pushes its perspective means most Turkish citizens remain reluctant to discuss the issue from any other angle.
“In Turkey itself, history is taught as doctrine,” he added. “History is taught from the top down. It represents, essentially, state ideology.”
Yet in an ironic twist, scholarly research on the Armenian genocide has become so strong over the years largely thanks to the doubts of the Turkish government.
“It’s certainly helped shape the field, helped shape the sensitivity with which historians go about it,” said Gingeras. “They have to know what they’re talking about, they have to be somewhat conscientious about sources and where their research fits within the broader framework of the study of the Ottoman Empire and especially this period of time. There’s a really high standard.”
- onjig likes this
#16
Posted 12 December 2019 - 02:29 PM
Senate approves resolution recognising early 20th century killings of Armenians as 'genocide', a label Turkey rejects.
The Republican-led United States Senate on Friday adopted a resolution recognising the early 20th century killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as "genocide", a label Turkey rejects.
The move comes after the House of Representatives in October approved a similar resolution.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart.
They say the mass killings amounted to "genocide", a claim recognised by about 30 countries.
Turkey strongly denies the accusation of "genocide" and says Armenians and Turks died as a result of World War I. It puts the death toll in the hundreds of thousands from both sides.
After the House move in October, Ankara warned US-Turkey relations would be harmed.
"The resolution which has apparently been drafted and issued for domestic consumption is devoid of any historical or legal basis," Turkey's foreign ministry said in a statement at the time.
More soon...
- onjig likes this
#17
Posted 12 December 2019 - 06:36 PM
Thank God and Congress ~ Now the President should sign this bill and America will join the countries and the world in recognizing the Armenian Genocide ~ and no longer be silent on murder to please anyone ```
Thank you to Senator Robert Menendez and Senator Ted Cruz ~ they spoke well before the vote ```
- Yervant1 likes this
#18
Posted 12 December 2019 - 07:02 PM
#19
Posted 13 December 2019 - 09:19 AM
The barking is intensified, you idiots keep denying it will not work. Actually you are helping it.
Anadolu Agency, Turkey
Dec 12 2019Turkey lashes at US resolution on 1915 Armenian events 'Sanctions, threats to not deter us from protecting our national security interests,' says communications directorBurak Bir |12.12.2019ANKARA
The latest U.S. moves, the sanctions bill and the resolution recognizing Armenian claims of 1915 events, jeopardize the bilateral relations with Turkey, a top Turkish official said on Thursday.
"The sanctions bill that passed yesterday in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Armenian resolution that passed today in the Senate endanger the future of our bilateral relationship," Fahrettin Altun, Turkish communications director, said on Twitter.
His remarks came after the U.S. Senate unanimously passed Thursday a resolution that recognizes the so-called Armenian genocide.
The resolution asserted that "it is the policy" of the U.S. to commemorate the alleged genocide "through official recognition and remembrance."
Turkey informed the U.S. about the reasons and aims of its anti-terror operation in northern Syria, Altun recalled, and added that Turkey refuses to compromise its national security “as some US Congress members are uncomfortable.”
"Sanctions and threats will not deter us from protecting our national security interests," he stressed.
Altun hit back at the U.S. Senate resolutions as “irresponsible and irrational actions.”
"As we stated previously we expect our Armenian brothers to stand up and prevent the U.S. Congress to destroy any attempt to reconcile our differences through scientific and academic channels."
"History will note these resolutions as irresponsible and irrational actions by some members of the U.S. Congress against Turkey. They will go down in history as the responsible party for causing a long lasting damage between two nations," he said.
Ibrahim Kalin, Turkey's presidential spokesman, also lashed out at the fresh U.S. resolution.
“This null and void decision will not affect Turkey’s righteous and resolute stance on political, military or economic areas,” Kalin said on Twitter.
Turkey's position on the events of 1915 is that the deaths of Armenians in eastern Anatolia took place when some sided with invading Russians and revolted against Ottoman forces. A subsequent relocation of Armenians resulted in numerous casualties.
Turkey objects to the presentation of the incidents as "genocide" but describes the 1915 events as a tragedy in which both sides suffered casualties.
Ankara has repeatedly proposed the creation of a joint commission of historians from Turkey and Armenia plus international experts to examine the issue.
- onjig likes this
#20
Posted 13 December 2019 - 09:20 AM
By Sky Palma
In a direct refutation of the repeated objections of the Trump administration this Thursday, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide.
As USA Today points out, the historic move will likely complicate US-Turkey relations since it acknowledges that Turkey, then known as the Ottoman Empire, carried out the systematic killings of 1.5 million Armenians from 1915 to 1923.
Menendez reportedly broke down in tears as he recounted the horrors.
Axios reports that Menendez and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) tried to pass the resolution three times before but were blocked by GOP senators at the behest of the Trump White House, which “feared that its passage would infuriate the Turkish government during a tense period of U.S.-Turkey relations.”
- onjig likes this
0 user(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users